Basketball On The Internet.

IS there enough petrol left in the NZ Breakers' tank to take down Illawarra tonight in Wollongong and then actually give regular season NBL champion Melbourne anything of a semi final series? The answer lies in two hyphenated names - Jackson-Cartwright and McDowell-White.  

New Zealand's backcourt duo is as lethal and influential as any in the NBL. Parker Jackson-Cartwright's past month-to-six weeks have been breath-taking and Will McDowell-White has returned to playoff beast mode.

The question is whether there is enough left in Zylan Cheatham, Mangok Mathiang, Finn Delany, Tom Abercrombie - in what would be his final NBL game if the Breakers lose - and Izayah Le'afa to get across the line.

Mantas Rubstavicius will be lively for sure but in Wollongong, where the faithful are certain to be out in force, coach Mody Maor will need to weave some special magic to keep NZ's season alive.

The thing to remember though is he has done precisely that before.

Now the spotlight turns on Illawarra and these Hawks new coach Justin Tatum effectively rescued from imminent obscurity.

Can Sam Froling recover his confidence enough to not only take a few mid-range shots but actually want to?

Will Gary Clark, one of the season's biggest revelations, be close enough to 100 percent to impact more significantly than Cheatham?

Will Tyler Harvey continue to distribute the ball and pick his shots judiciously and will Justin Robinson take it to the hoop rather than settle?

Will Hyunjung Lee be banking threes and crashing the boards or playing within himself?

And can Tatum draw the best again from "Davo" Hickey, Todd Blanchfield, Lachlan Olbrich and Mason Peatling?

He's going to have to for Illawarra to progress and meet United in the semi finals. Because one thing is for sure. Mody will come with a plan.

Ultimately then it may be a final question of are the Breakers healthy enough to execute it or will they fall to Tatum's tactics, provided his charges stay sufficiently disciplined and execute it?

Health versus Discipline. It's a very tough call. Maybe homecourt gets the Hawks across. But then it wasn't much help to Illawarra's little brother Sydney ...